Friday, December 04, 2015

NAGOYA, Japan – The LPGA of Japan team holds the advantage after the opening day four-balls in The Queens presented by Kowa at
Miyoshi Country Club.

On a bitterly cold day,
the home nation
won all four of their matches. Ayaka Watanabe and Erika Kikuchi put the
first point on the board with a 6 and 4 win over Ladies
European Tour captain Dame Laura Davies and Melissa Reid, in the four
way tie between the
Ladies Professional Golf Association
of Japan (JLPGA), Ladies European Tour (LET), Australian Ladies
Professional Golf (ALPG) and Korean Ladies Professional Golf Association
(KLPGA).

“We
were always up against it but really disappointed not taking them to
the last few holes. We just didn’t make enough birdies,” said Davies.

Reid
added: “Having five weeks off obviously doesn’t work very well for me,
but it was just really cold. We had a rushed warm=up as well and it was
hard to get into
a rhythm. They played great.”

In the unique and innovative scoring system created for the inaugural tournament,
three points are awarded for a win and one point to each team for a halved match. That means that Japan leads with 12 points.

Ueda said: “I’m
extremely delighted with the way Japan has started the tournament. Our
target was, and
still is, to win every match. However, we can’t take today’s results
for granted as we know it could be a very different story tomorrow.
Looking at the scoreboard during the round, and seeing how well the
other players were doing, gave me extra confidence
and I’m sure it was the same for my teammates.”

Korea
is in second place with seven points after two wins and a halved match.
US Women’s Open champion In Gee Chun and Yoon Ji Cho beat
Australians Katherine Kirk and Nikki Garrett by 4 and 3, while Jung Min
Lee and Min Sun Kim beat Gwladys Nocera and Marianne Skarpnord by one hole.

The Ladies European Tour team is in third place with four points after one win and one halved match.

This
year’s Tipsport Golf Masters champion Hannah Burke and Emily Kristine
Pedersen, who recently claimed her maiden title in India, combined
for a 4 and 3 win over Sarah Kemp and Sarah Jane Smith.

In the last match, Europeans
Catriona Matthew and Karine Icher halved with Koreans Sung Hyun Park and Bo-Mee Lee.

Rookie
professional Pedersen birdied the first hole to gain an immediate
advantage in the third match before the effervescent Burke made
a par on the long second for the Europeans to go two up on the
Australians. Pedersen made a long winning birdie putt of 26 yards across
the fourth green before Burke holed from four feet on the 155 yard par 3
fifth to go four up.

“At
the beginning we both holed some good putts for birdie and got a few up
quite early. We kept that momentum going,” said Burke. Pedersen added:
“We didn’t lose a
hole, we just kept it going and had the honour all the time. Hannah was
really nice and it worked out very well.”

It
was a disappointing day for the Australian team, who failed to win any
points in the four-balls. Captain Rachel Hetherington said: “We
can only get better. I
think all the girls actually played pretty solid. A few of us haven’t
played competition golf for a little while so were a little out of
sorts. We will definitely improve in every match
from now on.

“We
have a lot of diversity in our team, I guess. There are two new mums,
I’m a mum to a four year old as
well, so we probably have the most mums. Some of us haven’t played
competitively for a little while and some of us play in the States,
where their season finished in September, so we’re just warming up
really. We’ve got nine singles matches as well on Sunday
and foursomes which is different tomorrow.”

The captains hand in their pairings for the day two foursomes one hour after the conclusion of the first round.